TV Overnights: Football and tennis secures Thursday night for BBC
Thursday’s TV viewers were treated to an onslaught of Wimbledon across two channels and the all-important final semi-final (yes, it will end at some stage) of Euro 2012. If that wasn’t enough to get excited about, fans of rustic drama were treated to an hour long offering of Emmerdale (ITV1, 7pm).
There was trouble in store for Lisa Dingle as the rural loan sharks popped around, explaining that the family owed them £8000. Which wouldn’t have been much of a problem if Zak hadn’t recently gone through a period of being ‘clinically fed-up’, which resulted in him randomly burying cash among the moors. 5.6 million (a 29% share) viewers tuned in to see how the unfortunate sequence of events would play out, with Wimbledon and the big game stealing a bit of its thunder (and viewers).
Up against Emmerdale on BBC One was the concluding semi-final of Euro 2012, which saw Germany v Italy raise their game, both eager to get a chance to face Spain in Sunday’s final. Gary Lineker and a few mates bantered around for 45 minutes until the match finally got underway at 7:45pm. Bonkers Italian striker Mario Balotelli owned the game, whizzing past his team mates and scoring the first two goals of the game in the 20th and 36th minute. German Ozil scored a penalty in the 90th minute but Italy’s success had been sealed. An average audience of 8 million viewers watched the entire coverage, with audiences peaking 11.5 million in the last few minutes. The game netted its largest audience share earlier at 9pm, hitting an impressive 48% reach.
Yesterday also saw day four of Wimbledon 2012 takeover both terrestrial BBC channels with presenter Sue Barker keeping an eye on all courts. Coverage began at 11:30am on BBC Two as the first matches of the day started. The four hour programme saw Serena Williams beat Hungarian Melinda Czink and attracted an average audience of 578,000 viewers, peaking at just under a million. Tennis fans were divided at 1:45pm as coverage of the men’s single kicked-off over on BBC One. An average audience of 2.4 million viewers watched Andy Murray beat Croatian Ivo Karlovic. But more importantly, a Beverly Hills native beat British hopeful James Ward. That man’s name was Mardy Fish.
BBC Two witnessed viewers dropping off as the BBC One coverage built up to a peak of 3.7 million. Later on there was another slight overlap as BBC One coverage wrapped up and the second segment of BBC Two reporting started at 5:45pm. An average of 1.8 million tuned in for the four hour coverage with viewers peaking at 4.2 million at 10pm, watching Nadal exit the competition.
Meanwhile in the nether regions of E4, fans of Hollyoaks (7pm) had to deal with yet another unexpected and traumatic death. Irish nurse Lynsey was Chester’s latest victim as flatmate and resident bad boy Brendan stumbled across her body. The shock offing pulled in a 520,000 viewers for the channel, the biggest audience of the day.
Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations.